Feeling

Feeling

“FEELINGS are facts! Decisions are made on FEELINGS about facts. Not on facts themselves”

Yvonne Rainer shares her viewpoint in this quote above when it comes to how often our powerful FEELINGS are dismissed as being of lesser value than facts.

I am so with her on this.

When I first got clean and sober back in 1995 banners advising me to think, think, think and slogans stating that “FEELINGS are not facts” assaulted my healing heart.

Intuitively I felt that if I continued to dismiss my authentic FEELINGS once clean and sober, I would well and truly go insane. After almost two decades of drug and alcohol addiction my heart had endured years of anesthetising, neglect and criticism. It had to stop. Now.

So it did. I invited my heart out on to the page to show itself to me. Like a coin being placed underneath a piece of paper and a lead pencil gently rubbed over the impression; slowly and surely the coin (as my heart has) made its face known. Our heart intuitively introduces itself through our sometimes clumsy but raw words. Our authentic FEELINGS make themselves known through multiple forms of expression so we can see all of who we are. Our beauty and our wounding both deserve equal respect and attention.

Our intuitive mind receives information through our common senses, sight, smell, taste, touch and sound, and lets us know loud and clear if all is not well. If it doesn’t smell or taste good, do not eat it. Spit it out. If it FEELS or sounds out of tune with the melody in our heart we need to speak up or turn it off. If it looks unsafe and unhealthy it most likely is.

One of my favorite wordsmiths and teachers, Albert Einstein, calls the intuitive or metaphoric mind (where our FEELINGS are created to be expressed) a sacred gift. He believed that the rational mind was a faithful servant. Einstein shared his view that it seemed paradoxical that in the context of modern life we had begun to worship the servant (our thoughts) and defile the divine (how our heart honestly FEELS). He advised that in order to truly enhance adult learning, enlightened educators must develop appropriate techniques that capitalise on both modes of knowing through rational intellect and intuitive FEELING by actively involving individuals in the process of learning.

I invite you to review if you have any elitism when it comes to head, heart and body.

Do you honour your thoughts, FEELINGS and actions with equal respect?

Slogans that encourage us to “Just do it” are motivating at times, but not in every instance. When lifestyle choices arise that require commitment, acting without thinking or, FEELING without taking empowered action, just leads us into confusion and unsustainable situations. If our thoughts, FEELINGS and actions are consistently in conflict we will give off mixed messages, and just end up lost in our own lives.

Passion is a gift from our intuitive mind, not our rational mind. We cannot think or act ourselves into a passionate state. We can arouse ourselves through thought and make progress by taking action for sure, but if our heart is not in it any growth will be short-lived. It takes heartfelt passionate desire to commit to bringing a long-term dream into reality.

Three questions I often ask myself and also invite my Emotional Fitness clients to run past themselves, if any decision is required. It might be a small purchase or a huge sea change we are considering. Nonetheless, checking in with our authentic truth helps us stay emotionally, physically and intellectually on track with our self-respect.

1. What do I honestly think about this for me, regardless of what others believe I should do?

2. How do I FEEL about it right now, and how am I likely to feel tomorrow and down the track about this decision? Remorse or relief?

3. Am I ready, willing and able to take action?

If I receive an intellectual, physical and emotional trifecta sign-off from myself rarely do I regret my decisions?

We become the whole package when we honour the whole human package we have been blessed with. Albert Einstein’s suggestion that in order to truly enhance adult learning we deliberately develop personal habits that capitalise on both modes of knowing through rational intellect and intuitive feeling has helped me make wiser lifestyle choices. The real kicker in slowing down and giving ourselves time to think, FEEL then act is that we also build emotionally safer, more intimate and robust long term relationships.

I love this beautiful quote from one of my favorite late actors Paul Newman. He was in my view, the whole package. A man’s man and also a woman’s man, but also an unapologetic intuitive who relied on his FEELINGS to navigate him through an exceptional life. Paul often confessed that he never agreed to act in a movie unless after reading the script he could see it, smell it and fall in love with it. He was a unique man who was never interested in facts no matter what his agent advised. He created a huge salad-dressing empire when others suggested it was a bad idea. It FELT right for him so he followed his intuitive mind. And, when asked to give advice on what it took to keep his long-term beautiful romance alive with wife Joanne Woodward with so much temptation around him daily, he answered from the heart about how he FELT about loyalty …

“People stay married because they want to, not because the doors are locked”